“The people formerly known as your audience, or the people formerly known as consumers, are now participants in the process of building your brand.”

You are not in control of your brand anymore, those people you thought about as targets, audience, or consumers (all words I have a problem with) are now content creators, critics, collectors, joiners and even influential spectators.

They have an influence over the development of your brand. Your brand is personal to them.

How do you invite them to the conversation? You want to learn how to listen to those sentiments and ideas that make up your brand perception and reality in the marketplace.

There is also the other side, your brand needs to have a core attitude that embodies what your company stands for.

This is beyond humanization, it's about putting a face and a personality on your business. Today, we don't just buy a product or a service anymore, we buy how that product and service makes us feel.

How do you enroll yourself in the conversation? Learn how to listen to your own voice. Make that represent the intent and attitude of you brand in the marketplace. What kind of proof, measurement, plans do you need to participate?

Comments

Hi Nathan,

My "argument" is, as you put it " we're people like you so bear with us".

We all know it but some how refuse to accept it (unless of course contrition is part of your brand).

But its more than this. We want to change corporations and convert them to a "purer" form with less sins of humanity - authentically superhuman ( perhaps consumers are reaching back to a religious tradition)

Whilst all the time the human failings of the consumer go largely unobeserved and unchecked.

This seems a strange basis for a conversation let alone a healty relationship.

@Peter- An interesting twist on authenticity for companies and consumers. As I understand, you're saying being truly authentic,in a human manner, means having a number of failings. But that customers actually want a company that isn't authentic, because they want the company to be perfect and deliver all the time, etc.

But I think there's a bit of an error in that, one that coincides with your question to begin with. A brand doesn't need to be authentically superhuman to be authentic.

I think authenticity leads to a brand's personality, it leads to a company that has a face. Having a personality and a face doesn't mean you're without error or that you have to be. Look at Apple. They've built a personality behind their brand, and they're not perfect. The launch of their 3G phone proves this. Do they get ridiculed for not being perfect? Sure. But its their personality that saves them from it.

If anything, I would argue that being authentic opens up the option for a company to be able to make more mistakes. It let's them say "we made a mistake and we're sorry, but we're people like you so bear with us."